Back in 1979, then state representatives Dale Hibbs (R-Iowa City) and Bob Arnould (D-Davenport) helped shepherd a bill through the Iowa House of Representatives that would have allowed marijuana to be used for medicinal purposes in the state. Providing the legislation with a type of odd-couple, bi-partisan support, Hibbs and Arnould managed to get the bill out of committee and onto the House floor for a full debate.

After a few hours of grueling political circus, however, they decided to withdraw the bill because it was abundantly clear that there wasn’t the support necessary to pass the measure in that legislative session — nor in any session in the near future.

“We took a hell of a beating,” Hibbs told the Press-Citizen Tuesday afternoon — two days before the Iowa Senate passed legislation that would decriminalize oil derived from marijuana for the treatment of severe epilepsy.

“At that point the issue brought along a lot of post-1960s politics with it,” Arnould said Tuesday morning. “The debate was all wrapped up in the past and wasn’t focused on the medical benefits. It was a non-productive, … so we pulled (the bill) from the floor.”

Later in that 1979 session, the pair did manage to have language added to the appropriations bill that called on the state Board of Pharmacy to organize a group of physicians “to advise the board on the type of program to be established, the qualifications of those who will be eligible to dispense the marijuana.” But the legislation also required the program to comply with all federal regulations, which at that time basically left it dead in the water.

“We never really expected much to come of it,” said Hibbs, now a retired school teacher who lives in Iowa City. “It was sort of a ‘Hail Mary’ effort.”

“It was an issue whose time was not come yet,” said Arnould, who now lives in Sacramento and works as the senior vice president of government affairs for the California Credit Union League. “But we knew eventually, sooner or later, Iowa would move forward with such a program. ... We just didn’t think it would take 35 years.”

Their bill, in fact, proved to be very far ahead of its time. It came:

• Two decades before the University of Iowa held the first conference on the question of marijuana’s medicinal value in 2000.

• Three decades before the Iowa Board of Pharmacy, after hosting a series of public forums across the state, unanimously voted to ask the Iowa Legislature to legalize the drug for medical use to change the classification of marijuana from a Schedule I drug (the most tightly regulated category for drugs) to a Schedule II drug (a category that already includes substances such as Demerol, opium and morphine).

• And a full 3½ decades before the Iowa Senate approved the smallest, baby-step possible for recognizing the medical value of marijuana derivatives — at least for the treatment of epilepsy. (The measure still has to be approved by a skeptical House and signed by a skeptical governor, but both have indicated that such legislation — if narrowly enough constructed — could gain support.)

We’re glad to see state lawmakers finally listening to their constituents. And we’re glad the debate over medical marijuana finally has matured to the point that serious policy discussion — as opposed to sophomoric pranks and ad hominem attacks — is at least possible. Hopefully it won’t take another 35 years before Iowa finally implements a medical marijuana program that proves as successful as the one in New Mexico.

And although we are disappointed that this current bill doesn’t go nearly far enough, we still hope to celebrate its passage as an extremely tiny, glacially slow step in the right direction.

To contact us

• Send letters (up to 250 words) to opinion@press-citizen.com.

• All letters must include a name, address and daytime phone number. (Only your name and city will be printed.)

• The editor reserves the right to edit letters for length, content, clarity and style.